Humble beginnings

The 54-year-old Australian and Greek national describes himself as an "accidental economist".

Varoufakis went to school in Athens before travelling to Essex, where he completed his bachelors degree in Mathematical Economics. He went on to do a Masters at Birmingham, before returning to Essex for a PhD in Economics, where his interest in game theory began.

It was also where he started to stick up for the underdog. Professor Monojit Chatterji, who supervised Varoufakis's doctorate at Essex university, reminisces:

Yanis was smart, extremely well-read, not just in economics but philosophy and world politics.

He was also abrasive. It's just his style. And that style went down like a lead balloon I suspect in Europe, where people are used to couching disagreement in extremely diplomatic language. Yanis doesn't do diplomacy.

He was always up for doing the unusual and the unexpected. For example, he put himself forward in the 1980s as president of the Black Student Union.

People looked at him - he's as white as driven snow - and said what the hell is this? But he said, 'black' is a political term, for anyone who has been discriminated against or a potential subject of discrimination on grounds of ethnicity, and that's me.

So he was elected, and he was very proud of that. The reason they elected him is because he would take their case with huge vigour and forcefulness in much the same way as he has now.

During his time in the UK, it became clear he wasn't one of Margaret Thatcher's biggest fans. He said of the Iron Lady:

All that sprang out of Thatcherism were the spivs, extreme financialisation, the triumph of the shopping mall over the corner store, the fetishisation of housing and… Tony Blair.

When Syriza took power in January, he quoted welsh poet Dylan Thomas, saying Greeks should choose "to stop going gently into the night, and to rage against the dying of the light."

In this interview in 1993 on the Greek elections, he said proponents of austerity ”can’t justify that pain by pointing out the gain“.

As a professor at the University of Athens, Varoufakis was scathing about Greece's first bail-out. He told the New York Times in 2010:

You do not lend money at high interest rates to the insolvent and you do not introduce austerity into a recession,'' he said. ''It's pretty simple: the debt is going up and GDP is going down. Have we not learned the lesson of 1929?

Kicking the can up the hill is fruitless

Varoufakis, who has compared the tough terms of bail out deals to “fiscal waterboarding”, was an adviser and speechwriter to George Papandreou, the man who almost held a referendum in 2011. Back then he said "not even God Almighty’’ as finance minister could redeem the country’s dire situation.

Papandreou should have looked his European partners in the eyes and said: ‘No, I can’t serve this to my people’. It would force the EU to address the European debt crisis once and for all, not allowing it to muddle on. We're kicking the can up the hill. And with every kick the can is getting thicker, heavier and fatter, and at some point it will roll back and squash us.

In September 2011, Varoufakis was already saying a Greek default was inevitable:

Greece must default, and the logic is very simple: when you have a huge debt buildup and a debt overhang following a financial crisis, it is impossible to repay your debts, even if you are extremely willing to do so, simply by cutting through austerity. Austerity will make the debt crisis worse, always has done, always will do.

Tougher talk in July 2012:

There is precisely zero chance of austerity working. It is the same as thinking you can escape from gravity by waving your arms up and down.

Europe's made a mess of Greece for the past three years. Those responsible will go down as the biggest idiots in the history of economics.

Varoufakis has been saying for a long time that the current policies of the eurozone are "doomed".

@motsardents A Greek exit WILL be the euro's end. Not a Greek default. The ECBS can simply impose on all CBs acceptance of Greek liabilities

I will try to be as charming as I can in Berlin. I will tell Mr Schäuble that we may be a Left-wing riff-raff but he can count on our Syriza movement to clear away Greece's cartels and oligarchies, and push through the deep reforms of the Greek state that governments before us refused to do.

But I will also tell him that we are going to end the debt-deflation spiral and do what should have been done five years ago. That is not negotiable. We have a democratic mandate to challenge the whole philosophy of austerity.

Controversy

Fame can quickly turn into notoriety when you're in the public eye, and this video, purportedly showing Varoufakis giving Germany "the finger", quickly surfaced:

Varoufakis described the video as doctored. I'll leave you to judge the authenticity of the video yourself.

With Greece fast running out of cash, and no indication that Greece or its creditors were prepared to sign on the dotted line of a new deal, the Greek government called a referendum. In one of his final interviews as finance minister, Varoufakis said he would cut off his own arm before signing a debt accord that did not include a debt write-off.

He also accused European creditors of trying to terrorise the Greek people into submission. He told El Mundo newspaper:

If Greece crashes, a trillion euros will be lost. It's too much money and I don't believe Europe could allow it. What they're doing with Greece has a name: terrorism. What Brussels and the troika want today is for the 'yes' [vote] to win so they could humiliate the Greeks.

So what next?

Varoufakis is unlikely to return to writing "obscure academic texts for years", and many believe he will remain a key figure in the Syriza party, even if he does not hold the title of finance minister any more. He told Bloomberg that he has promised to stay in Greece and finish the job.

Varoufakis may not be riding off into the sunset on his motorbike just yet (Photo: Reuters)

Professor Chatterji believes this isn't the end of Varoufakis's political career:

This is not necessarily the end of Yanis Varoufakis the politican. Suppose I was in Tsipras's place. He needs all the talent he can keep around him. he needs someone who is hugely popular with the Greek public, or at least a certain segment of it.

Yanis may not be involved in negotiations with European ministers and the like, but does that mean you don't want him in government? I think he may have a ministerial role in the future that is less public.